Grammys hoping for excitement
As a concert, the Grammy Awards are often well worth watching. Witness Sly Stone coming out of retirement, or the raucous tribute to the Clash's Joe Strummer a few years back, or even the hushed opening by a reunited Simon & Garfunkel in 2003.
But as an awards show? Not so much.
Each year, the winners of the Grammys' major categories -- record of the year, song of the year and album of the year -- often tilt toward safe, veteran acts or newcomers who sound like safe, veteran acts. Occasionally a fresh face breaks through -- Amy Winehouse took home record and song of the year last year -- but usually the winners are balladeers (Norah Jones), R&B balladeers (Alicia Keys), legendary figures (last year's album of the year winner, Herbie Hancock) or late legendary figures (Ray Charles, who won album of the year for his posthumous release, "Genius Loves Company").
"Making fun of the Grammys is ... almost too simple," wrote MTV.com's James Montgomery. "They're easy targets: gigantic, slow-to-turn battleships of mass appeal, just floating there, awaiting a well-placed torpedo."
But, says Blender magazine's Joe Levy, this year might be different.
"The whole purpose of this year's Grammys is to be more exciting than last year's," he said. "Last year, of course, album of the year went to a Herbie Hancock album -- a jazz album of covers of Joni Mitchell songs. I think the Grammys would like to avoid that this year, and they've done that by making the nominees hipper than they have been for many years recently.
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"Also, the lineup of performers is frankly stellar," Levy said.
Indeed, this year's Grammy performers include Paul McCartney (with the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl backing him on drums), U2, Coldplay, Grammy nominations leader Lil Wayne, Radiohead, Kenny Chesney and Justin Timberlake.
Among the presenters: Craig Ferguson, Sheryl Crow, Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow (the wife of Coldplay singer/pianist Chris Martin) and Al Green.
Rapper Lil Wayne received eight nominations, including album of the year (for his "Tha Carter III"). Coldplay earned seven nods, including album of the year (for "Viva La Vida") and record of the year (the title track).
Among others with multiple nominations are Ne-Yo, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Radiohead and newcomer Jazmine Sullivan.
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